SoJones x Subspecies Exclusive Interview

Article written by: SoJones Asmara
Posted on: July 31, 2009

SoJones.com welcomes SUBSPECIES, a new label which is becoming popular in the underground urban / streetwear scene in the U.K. Below is the exclusive interview with Chris Hughes, founder of SUBSPECIES.

SoJones.com: Introduce yourself and describe how your brand was started?
Chris Hughes: We are Subspecies, an urban/streetwear label that was formed by a troop of talented designers who were tired of the poor quality that mainstream brands were banging out and selling out to the sheep of society.

SJ: Describe this season and next season’s looks. What’s your inspiration?
CH: The design team consists of General Thade, Ceasar & Nim; Three wise monkeys who all come from varied backgrounds who can influence each other in their areas. Inspiration comes from everything you see and read. We get our ideas from the depths of our minds and try to stay away from trend direction too, that stuff’s for the catwalk cats and the la-di-das of this world. I mean who makes these trends up? Someone trying to sell you a book for £600 per season, thats who. That’s why we made ours limited edition, there are no boundaries, you’re guaranteed to be different – a Subspecies. There are No Gods, No Masters!

SJ: What celeb or well-known figure(s) exemplify the brand?
CH: Of course, we want the cream of the crop reppin’ our garms, be it a hip hopper or body popper, if you got skillz to pay tha billz we got the garms to slide on your arms!

SJ: Any product placements on celebs, in movies or videos to keep an eye out for?
CH: At the moment no. But if any of you movie moguls wanna get in touch! haha. We do sponsor UK hip hop artists such as Jack Flash E.O.W., Don’t talk to strangers, No Pretence, Chief Wiggz, and many more as well as Discovery channel London ink’s tattooist Phil Kyle to name a few.
We are also currently working on collaborations with ‘Plug’ a very talented graffitti artist from the U.K.

SJ: Any expansion plans?
CH: We got a whole range of things to be released; the next drop consists of more limited edition tees, some hoodies and a polo shirt. We have belts, underwear, bags and we’re getting a lot of girls asking when we’re bringing their range out, so that’s what’s happening at the mo.

SJ: Looking ahead over the next year or two, what themes/looks/styles do you see your brand gravitating to?
CH: Over the next few years we are aiming to keep building more product into the brand keeping it affordable yet still the best quality on the market.

SJ: What themes/looks/styles do you see your brand moving away from?
CH: Anything mainstream, we are a brand that believes in quality and originality

SJ: What has been a surprise fashion hit over the last year?
CH: ‘I love Police Brutality’ limited edition tee by Subspecies has gone well for us, and we are working on a follow up to this. On other brands, there’s been some real popular labels come out and sold out.